Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in Lebanon on Friday against Hezbollah, which fired rockets into Israeli territory, after an international call for a ceasefire sponsored by the United States and France failed.
Since Monday, massive Israeli bombings aimed at weakening the Lebanese Islamist movement, supported by Iran and ally of Palestinian Hamas, have left more than 700 dead in Lebanon, according to the authorities, including many civilians.
Lebanon is experiencing its deadliest period in “a generation”, the UN warned on Friday.
Faced with the military escalation that threatens to drag the Middle East into war, the United States and France, joined by many Western and Arab countries, have launched a call for a 21-day ceasefire , rejected Thursday by Israel which promised to fight Hezbollah “until victory”.
A possible ground operation against Hezbollah will be “as short” as possible, an Israeli security official assured Friday, while the army chief of staff, General Herzi Halevi, had asked soldiers on Wednesday to prepare for a possible land incursion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to deliver a speech around 9:30 a.m. EDT to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“No hope”
The Israeli army announced on Friday that it had carried out “dozens of strikes” against Hezbollah, whose rockets have targeted northern Israel almost daily since the unprecedented attack launched on October 7, 2023 by Hamas on Israeli soil, which started the war in the Gaza Strip.
The powerful Lebanese movement has promised to continue its attacks “until the end of the aggression in Gaza”.
In total, more than 1,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since cross-border shooting began almost a year ago, according to that country’s authorities, more than the 1,200 deaths in 33 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
“Everything is collapsing around us,” a 55-year-old Lebanese businessman, Anis Rubeiz, told AFP. “I don’t see any hope on the horizon, not even a ray of light,” he added.
UNICEF has expressed alarm at the “scary rate” at which children are being killed by bombings, as well as the damage to civilian installations such as pumping stations, which deprive “30,000 people of access to drinking water” in eastern and southern Lebanon.
“All displaced”
On Friday, the Israeli army announced that it had targeted Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructures” across southern Lebanon and responded to a rocket attack towards Haifa, the major port in northern Israel.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing on the Kyriat Ata sector in Haifa Bay, which is home to many industries, including defense.
The army also said it had intercepted four drones fired from Lebanon towards the Rosh Hanikra border area.
The Islamist movement, for its part, claimed to have fired rockets at the town of Tiberias, around thirty kilometers south of the border.
Five Syrian soldiers were also killed in an Israeli strike near the border with Lebanon, according to the official Sana agency.
Israeli bombings have thrown 118,000 people onto the roads in Lebanon this week, according to the UN.
In Baakline, southeast of Beirut, Hala Zeidan has been welcoming two sisters from the south and the little boy of one of them, aged 10, since Monday. “This is our country and these are people displaced from their villages. We could all become displaced people. We must show compassion,” explains this 61-year-old teacher.
Rejecting the international call for a ceasefire, Benjamin Netanyahu assured Thursday that the army would continue its fight against Hezbollah “with all the necessary force”.
His Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, affirmed that this fight would continue “until victory”.
“Devastating war”
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Thursday of a “total war” that “would be devastating for Israel and Lebanon,” saying a ceasefire could also make it possible to conclude a truce agreement. in Gaza.
Israel announced in mid-September that it had moved the “center of gravity” of its operations, until then concentrated on the Gaza Strip, to the north of the country, to allow the return of tens of thousands of residents who fled. Hezbollah rocket fire.
According to the Israeli government, 9,360 rockets and missiles have been fired at Israel in almost a year.
“It’s a real anguish. We don’t know what will happen, if the rockets will come closer, if they will reach Haifa,” testified Fida Khoury, a 28-year-old resident of this city.
The Israeli army also announced that it had intercepted a missile fired during the night from Thursday to Friday from Yemen. The Houthi rebels, also supported by Iran, claimed responsibility for a missile and drone attack in Israel.
Meanwhile, Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip, launched on October 7, 2023 in response to the Hamas attack which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures including hostages dead or killed in Gaza.
Of 251 people kidnapped, 97 are still held in Gaza, 33 of whom are declared dead by the army.
In retaliation, Israel promised to destroy Hamas, in power in the Palestinian territory since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
Its offensive in Gaza has so far left 41,534 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health, deemed reliable by the UN, and has caused a humanitarian disaster there.